Sonoratown is the brainchild of Teodoro Diaz-Rodriguez, Jr. and Jennifer Feltham—two veterans of the service industry with 27 years of combined experience. In 2016, they decided to open a restaurant that would pay homage to the small border town in Mexico where Teo grew up and also their beloved neighborhood of Downtown Los Angeles. Downtown had been home for six years at that point, and it was time to help define what the revitalization of the neighborhood would look like...
The project would be named "Sonoratown" which was the name of a small community of Mexican immigrants who settled in the area we now know as Chinatown, after the Gold Rush in 1850. The restaurant idea was simple: serve tacos in the style of San Luis Río Colorado, Sonora—a part of Northern Mexico known for having the most delicious carne asada—cooked over mesquite wood fire—and also for truly excellent handmade flour tortillas.